Archived: Recommendation Summary

Summary of Recommendations

The USPSTF recommends exercise or physical therapy and vitamin D supplementation to prevent falls in community-dwelling adults aged 65 years or older who are at increased risk for falls.

No single recommended tool or brief approach can reliably identify older adults at increased risk for falls, but several reasonable and feasible approaches are available for primary care clinicians. See the Clinical Considerations section for additional information on risk assessment.

The USPSTF does not recommend automatically performing an in-depth multifactorial risk assessment in conjunction with comprehensive management of identified risks to prevent falls in community-dwelling adults aged 65 years or older because the likelihood of benefit is small. In determining whether this service is appropriate in individual cases, patients and clinicians should consider the balance of benefits and harms on the basis of the circumstances of prior falls, comorbid medical conditions, and patient values.